1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system, and in particular, to a method and apparatus for generating links to resources. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method, apparatus, and computer instructions for generating links to resources that may be used across different runtime environments.
2. Description of Related Art
The Internet, also referred to as an “internetwork”, is a set of computer networks, possibly dissimilar, joined together by means of gateways that handle data transfer and the conversion of messages from a protocol of the sending network to a protocol used by the receiving network. When capitalized, the term “Internet” refers to the collection of networks and gateways that use the TCP/IP suite of protocols.
The Internet has become a cultural fixture as a source of both information and entertainment. Many businesses are creating Internet sites as an integral part of their marketing efforts, informing consumers of the products or services offered by the business or providing other information seeking to engender brand loyalty. Many federal, state, and local government agencies are also employing Internet sites for informational purposes, particularly agencies which must interact with virtually all segments of society such as the Internal Revenue Service and secretaries of state. Providing informational guides and/or searchable databases of online public records may reduce operating costs. Further, the Internet is becoming increasingly popular as a medium for commercial transactions.
Currently, the most commonly employed method of transferring data over the Internet is to employ the World Wide Web environment, also called simply “the Web”. Other Internet resources exist for transferring information, such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Gopher, but have not achieved the popularity of the Web. In the Web environment, servers and clients effect data transaction using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), a known protocol for handling the transfer of various data files (e.g., text, still graphic images, audio, motion video, etc.). The information in various data files is formatted for presentation to a user by a standard page description language, the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In addition to basic presentation formatting, HTML allows developers to specify “links” to other Web resources identified by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). A URL is a special syntax identifier defining a communications path to specific information. Each logical block of information accessible to a client, called a “page” or a “Web page”, is identified by a URL. The URL provides a universal, consistent method for finding and accessing this information, not necessarily for the user, but mostly for the user's Web “browser”. A browser is a program capable of submitting a request for information identified by an identifier, such as, for example, a URL. A user may enter a domain name through a graphical user interface (GUI) for the browser to access a source of content. The domain name is automatically converted to the Internet Protocol (IP) address by a domain name system (DNS), which is a service that translates the symbolic name entered by the user into an IP address by looking up the domain name in a database.
Web pages requested by users may be static or dynamic. With respect to dynamic Web pages, code, such as a Java server page is used to generate this type of dynamic content. In designing dynamic content, embedded links, such as URLs, should be avoided. The reason for this avoidance is that hard-coded strings for links cause additional maintenance. This maintenance occurs because files containing hard-coded strings for links will need to be modified any time a component of the URL changes. Additionally, the use of a hard-coded string also is a problem when content is moved from development, to test and on to production. For example, http://development.internal.company.com/Accounts is used in development but may be changed to https://testing.internal.company.com/Accounts in testing and further changed to https://www.company.com/Banking/Accounts in production. Currently, when a change in the location of the content occurs, the programmer or developer is required to change each of the URL strings to reflect the current location of the content. Similar changes must be made if the name of the content changes. In some cases, a Web site may contain hundreds or thousands of links, all of which require changes when the Web site is moved. These changes are tedious and time consuming and may be prone to errors.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have an improved method, apparatus, and computer instructions for generating links that do not rely on hard-coded strings.